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In a town where hundreds of local craft beers are on tap, the India Pale Ale - better known as the IPA - is the one that rules the scene.

There are West Coast IPAs, English IPAs, red IPAs, black and white IPAs. Bold Rock Hard Cider even makes an IPA - an India Pressed Apple (cider with hops).

Rare is the local brewery that doesn't offer a year-round IPA. Many have several on tap. Originally made in England in the 18th century to survive the long ocean voyage to India, it has become America's favorite craft beer style. When craft brewing began in Asheville in the mid-1990s, Highland Brewing and Green Man began turning out their versions. A quick local count reveals at least 60 IPAs made by local breweries.

Area breweries know that IPA is what many drinkers want. But some are puzzled by the beer's popularity.

"I just don't get it," said Kyle Williams, owner and brewer at Brevard Brewing, which specializes in lager. "I make an IPA because I have to. There are just too many hopheads out there to miss out on the demographic."

In his taproom, the IPA is his best-seller, he said. But counting his many outside accounts, pilsner sells better.

"IPA is incredibly hard to sell wholesale," he said. "Every brewery pushes their IPA as one of their main beers. The market is flooded with competition."

But that doesn't stop breweries from bringing out more. The region's largest homegrown brewery, Highland Brewing Company of Asheville, has just released a new bottled and draft brew simply called Highland IPA. The West Coast-style beer packs a big punch in hops. It replaces Highland's long-running Kashmir English-style IPA, which has been retired. Later this year, Highland will release a new lower-alcohol canned IPA.

HIghland head brewer Hollie Stephenson came to Asheville from San Diego, where she learned the art of hoppy higher-alcohol IPAs.

"I love experimenting with hops," she said. "When I got the job at Stone, 90 percent of what we were making was some form of IPA. It was right up my alley."

While Highland helped introduce local IPA to Asheville, it lacked the big rich IPA so many drinkers enjoy. "It was missing in our portfolio," she said. "The market was demanding it. I wanted to be drinking it."

Highland IPA is 7 percent alcohol and flavored with American Chinook, Citra and Centennial hops. Mandarina, a "sessions" IPA arriving in July, goes another route at 5.5 percent alcohol with notes of melon, strawberry and tangerine.

In Asheville's River Arts District, the IPA makes its presence known at Wedge Brewing where drinkers get their pints at a special window and purchase it in 16-ounce cans. At Asheville Brewing, the "old school" Shiva IPA, Pacific Northwest-style offering, is one of its flagship beers, made with Columbia and Liberty Hops, brewer Doug Riley said. The company also turns out Red Light IPA and Perfect Day IPA.

In Black Mountain, Pisgah Brewing has made "numerous" IPAs over the years, spokesman Benton Wharton said. They include the canned and draft Greybeard IPA, the summertime Homegrown IPA made with locally sourced ingredients, Vortex I (a triple IPA also known as an Imperial IPA), and new this year will be a double IPA, he said. Wharton believes IPAs are the "next move from generic domestic beers to craft brewing. You start with the easy-to-find malty beers like Newcastle and Bass." Then "the next sensation your palate is ready for is bitterness."

Catawba Brewing, which operates out of Morganton and Asheville, started its IPA as a mid-1990s home brew from company founders and brothers Scott and Billy Pyatt. Their Firewater IPA is a "British-style" IPA with lots of hops and "a rich malty underpinning," Billy Pyatt said.

When Catawba first made the beer, "the variety of hops available to small brewers was somewhat limited," he said. The company used the available British Goldings and Fuggles hops to bring spice to the beer, and Cascade for the classic citruslike notes.

North Carolina craft breweries were once limited by state law to make beers no more than 6 percent alcohol, although that regulation was discarded in 2005. Today, Firewater "is our No. 2 or No. 3 best-selling beer," Billy Pyatt said, and Catawba also produces REDiculous Red IPA, Astral Bootie and, in its taprooms, the Nose IPA. It also makes Brewtal Double IPA using Mandarina Bavaria hops.

Asheville's nationally famous Wicked Weed and its sister Funkatorium breweries are known for their many imaginative beers. But its flagship Freak of Nature Double IPA "is easily our most popular pub beer and always has been," said spokeswoman Erin Jones. "We can't seem to brew enough. We've always been playing catch up with that beer."

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Catawba Brewing co-owner Billy Pyatt pours out a pint of Firewater IPA at their location on Banks Avenue.(Photo: Maddy Jones/mjones@citizen-times.com)

The beer is sold on draft and since July has also been in bottles, she said. The hops used in Freak remain a brewery secret. Wicked Weed also produces Treachery IPA and Sweet Talker sessions IPA.

The region's big national craft breweries do their part in creating IPAs. At Oskar Blues in Brevard, G'Knight (once called Gordon) is an Imperial Red IPA first canned in 2005, spokesman Aaron Baker said. It is joined in the brewery's lineup by Deviant Dale's IPA, and in 2015 two new entries: Pinner Throwback IPA and Oskar Blues IPA. Some drinkers even consider the brewery's flagship Dale's Pale Ale to fall into IPA territory though the company prefers to describe it as a "hopped up pale ale," he said. If Dale's is included in an accounting, hoppy beers are more than 70 percent of Oskar Blues sales volume, he said.